Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice. Photo: CP OTTAWA — The Justice Department announced 13 new judicial appointments last week. Twelve of them were men and the lone woman represented a promotion to a higher court, not a new face in the pool of federal judges.
As controversy continues over Justice Minister Peter MacKay’s alleged comments to a group of Ontario lawyers about women failing to apply to become judges, some legal experts say the prospects for female judges have diminished under the Conservatives.
“The frustration that we have is that under the Liberal government, they were making very healthy female appointments; it wasn’t a problem under the Liberals,” Linda Robertson, who chairs the women lawyers forum for the Canadian Bar Association in B.C., said Friday.
“It’s only been since the Conservatives came in that the number of female appointments have slowed down. They haven’t stopped, but they’ve sure slowed down.”
MacKay’s department begs to differ, saying 34 per cent of sitting judges are now women, up from 29 per cent when the Tories came to power.
The head of the CBA, however, made note of the lack of diversity among judges in a speech Friday to the organization’s constitutional and human rights conference in Ottawa.
“Our courts at all levels have yet to reflect the gender balance and diversity of Canadian society,” Fred Headon said.
“We need hard information so we can gauge where we’re at and what progress we are making or not making. We need to see where the bottlenecks are so we can identify them and remove them.”
Robertson agrees that better data is critical.
“We want the federal government to start simply reporting annually the number of men and women that apply across the country,” she said.
“For years they have been telling us that they would promote more women, but they just aren’t getting the applicants. But because it’s so opaque, we don’t know if that’s even true.”
Robertson noted that women make up only 37 per cent of the legal profession in Canada, meaning there is a much smaller pool of female applicants. Nonetheless, she said, judicial appointments under the Tories have been disproportionately going to men.
The lack of women in the judicial system came come under a spotlight after the Toronto Star reported that MacKay rankled a group of Ontario lawyers during a private meeting when he said women weren’t applying for judgeships.
The Star, quoting lawyers at the meeting, said MacKay suggested that women didn’t want to join the bench because they feared being sent out travelling on a circuit court. The justice ministers of Quebec and Ontario have criticized his comments as outdated and inaccurate.
MacKay has denied saying that women won’t apply for judge jobs due to child-rearing issues and the Ontario Bar Association has not released audio of his comments. But the most fierce defence of the embattled minister has come from his wife in response to a Globe and Mail column about the controversy.
“Peter was speaking to a closed session of lawyers, some of whom are now publicly attacking him, yet they refuse to release the actual tape of the speech he gave,” Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay said in a letter to the Globe.
“He asked them for the transcript so that he can put the accusations to rest and they flatly refused to release it. Instead, they run to the anti-Conservative media with hearsay and, of course, he is savaged by his accusers, political opponents and press.”
Afshin-Jam MacKay declined a request for an interview on Friday.
Robertson also urged the Ontario Bar Association to distribute the audio of MacKay’s comments. MacKay’s office says it didn’t record the speech.
“They really need to release that audio so we can get some clarity on what was said and begin a dialogue,” she said.
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